By now it should be clear that there won't be any economic bail-out money for small businesses. There will be no hundreds of billions of dollars spent propping us up. Although small business is the backbone of the American economy -- we really do make over half of everything that happens in this country happen -- it turns out that, unlike our "big business" cousins, we are not, in fact, "too big to fail." It seems that, once again, no one is coming to our rescue, and we are on our own.

And that's just fine! On our own is how we do it best. On our own is how we can be inventive and clever. It's on our own that the most intense passions of our entrepreneurial spirits flourish. We're always at our best when we are on our own -- and they leave us alone. On our own is how we bootstrap our way to something real and true. If big business is forever screwing things up, then we are forever putting things back together. Oh yes, they have really screwed things up this time. But as long as small business still gets up in the morning and makes something happen, as long as we continue to follow a dream, to fill the craving, to reach and to stretch, as long as we still have a vision and the will to pursue it, we'll be ok. Our children will be ok. Our country will be ok. We will all be ok, because we can do this thing, however daunting it may seem just now. Small business can rebuild our economy and Express is here to help. Now let's get to work!

So if you're reading this, you've probably heard about how quickly Express can pull your site together, and about now you are wondering "So how fast is Express, really?" The short answer is that it is faster than .... well, YOU. We say that we can deliver a heavily branded, thoughtful, well architected and highly effective small business web site in just 2 weeks, and that's very true. But that assumes a lot. It assumes that clients make decisions quickly and get back to us in an expeditious way, etc, etc. But the naked truth is that -- very often -- that's just too fast for most of our clients. And while we are proud of our ability to respond and deliver quickly, it's been our observation that most of our clients are uncomfortable moving that fast. There are a lot of decisions to be made, and options to mull over. And something else: we find that in many, many cases, our process becomes food for thought for our clients, and they find themselves digging deep to answer compelling business questions they've never really contemplated before. Questions like, what part of what I do do I really want to do more of?, and what kind of client do I really want to attract?

So give yourself a break. It's a good idea to take the time to think things through. But if you must have an answer to the question How fast can we create a web site for you, let's just keep it simple and say .... we can go as fast as you can.

Here's a cool tip: Occasionally we'll find a vendor or sub-vendor that's so cool, we just have to share them with you. We just added "Moo Cards" to our list of friends and affiliates. The folks at Moo have a line of business cards that are so cool, so unique and soooooo inexpensive we thought they'd be perfect for Express customers.

They are cut narrow, so they really stand out. The cards are thick and turgid (nice feel!), have GREAT color and come in smart plastic boxes that fit 100. All this (ready?) for only $16.99! Moo started in London, but all US orders are printed in and shipped from Rhode Island, and that qualifies them for our "Made in America" pledge.

This keeps coming up with our incredulous customers, so it's worth repeating here: NO part of our business model includes charging you a mark-up for hosting, e-mail, images, copy-writing or e-mail marketing. If you receive a bill for these at all, then these costs are simply pas-through expenses that you have asked us to bill you. Normally though, we ask you to pay for these services directly, and we'll set them up for you.

All the above-mentioned are mission-critical functionalities that ALL websites -- including yours -- will need. We just don't charge you for them. YES, we'll make recommendations, and YES we will set these things up for you (these are mission-critical to you, after all!), but NO, you won't (unless you request it) get a bill from us for these things.

Why not?
It's just not part of our "keep you independent" philosophy. You see, the other guy charges less on the development side, but sticks it to you by forcing you to sign an on-going contract for hosting and e-mail. For years. For ever. You know, competent hosting just shouldn't cost more than about $15/mos. So they're not really in the marketing business, they are in the boutique hosting business (they're charging you more than $15/mos., aren't they?). So what happens if you want to move your web business to another firm? You're contractually bound to the hosting guy. Get sideways with him and everything falls apart. Now you're stuck. And probably your URL is stuck, because he put it in his name, not yours, and now things get sloppy. We want no part of that. We are NOT in the hosting business, and never want to be. You need to be in charge. So we'll make a recommendation to you -- odds are we'll recommend GoDaddy since we think they are perfect for small businesses -- we'll help set you up but you'll pay for their service directly, and you'll "own" the relationship with them. Not us.

And we have the same philosophy for images, e-mail marketing (we recommend Constant Contact), and copy-writing (we can refer some great talent your way). We take the view that these are all sub-vendors to YOU, not us, so why would we mark them up?

Ah, and one more thought: we take our "Made in America" pledge seriously. We don't recommend sub-vendors to you that source to overseas talent. And if we find out they do, we stop recommending them. Weren't aware of our Made in America policy? Find out more here.

They're yellow. Like photographs or papers that were once bright and crisp but have yellowed with age and time. For all of you internet hold-outs out there who are still not sure how the internet is relevant to your business, listen-up: The internet, NOT the telephone, certainly NOT the yellow pages is the absolutely next-best thing to being there. We get this question all the time: should we invest in yellow page advertising? Noooooooo. It's expensive, you can't change it once it's up, and you've got to commit to it for a whole year. Worse, you commit to it up front and have to pay for it over time. That's like having your nose rubbed in it. After a few months you'll realize the ad is doing you no good, but you're still expected to keep paying for it, even though there is no longer any question that the ad doesn't work. Imagine having to keep making payments on a car that doesn't work and cannot be fixed. No, no, no, no, no. Take that $, every bit of it, and put it in to a better, more thoughtful, more functional, more optimized and better branded website. Increasingly, consumers are using the internet as a business directory. Need a plumber? Go to Google, type in "plumber, your town, your state" and bam! There's your list of plumbers. If you're a plumber and you're NOT not on that list, the writing is on your wall, and you now cannot say you don't know what to do!

You've opened shop, branded your small business, launched your website, and ordered your paper systems -- now what? Should you advertise? Where? Hold on tight, because you're probably not prepared for this answer: hands down, the single best thing you can do to advertise your small business is to wrap your car with a full-body car wrap. That's right a wrap. Not a decal, not a magnet. Those efforts are half-hearted, and like most half-hearted things only get luke-warm results. If you're going to do it, then get serious and really do it. Wrap it. The whole thing.

For most small businesses, car wraps are more effective (better results per dollar spent) than any other form of advertising. Really. Remember, traditional advertising is paid by insertion. It doesn't matter where you insert: newspaper, television, radio -- you'll need to run literally hundreds of ads in the right place at the right time to reach your target audience. Of course, each insertion costs you money. Stop running your ads, and people stop seeing/hearing them. A wrapped car is a moving billboard. But whereas a billboard is stuck in one place, a wrap is constantly moving as you go about your daily business, increasing brand awareness and finding fresh viewers all the time. For small businesses, the target is audience is generally the local one. Drive around your home town, and your target audience sees you over and over and over again, and yet you only pay for it once.

Consider this: An Arbitron, Inc., study shows that more than 95% of Americans travel by car each week, creating a mass audience for your advertising. Advertising your business with a wrap is simple and wildly effective, considering that one wrap can generate between 30,000 and 70,000 impressions each day. Really, it depends on how much you drive and where you go. On the low end, that's 10.9 million impressions in a 12-month period! A clever wrap gets noticed, and getting noticed is the key to growing your business

Wraps are ideal for advertising your business. Everywhere you go, it gets seen. Visit a client, get noticed by thousands. Go to the grocery store, get noticed by thousands. Park it in front of your place, and it's a sign. Pay for it once and don't worry about it again. Needs no particular care. Never needs waxing. It's 100% tax deductible as a business expense, and best yet: It's not paint - so it's not permanent. When you're ready for it to be gone, just peel it off. Won't fade or degrade for over 5 years. Guaranteed. And it will NOT hurt your paint. In fact, it protects your paint from UV light! Comes with a 5 year manufacturers warranty. More on wraps here.

Here's a horrible pattern we've been observing over the years: in good times, small business feels confident enough to expand their marketing efforts, but when the market slows, the first budget to be cut is the marketing budget. How counter-intuitive is that? That's like watering your grass when it's raining, but when drought hits, turning off the spigot. Now more than ever you need to step up the marketing of you small business.

We call it the "death spiral." When sales begin to slow, rather than step up their marketing to compensate, small businesses pull back. The more they pull back, the slower their sales. So they pull back some more. Don't let your small business fall in to the trap. Remember: nothing happens in business -- any business -- until something get's sold. But how can you sell something if people don't know what you are doing? That's marketing: letting your potential customers know who you are, what you're doing, and that you have something to sell. In a down economy, you need to do that more than ever.

Keep in mind that marketing is a campaign. Anything you can do to get your message out is a part of marketing. So often, we think of marketing as advertising, when in fact, advertising is just a tool of marketing. Perhaps advertising isn't a good tool for you at the moment. So focus on what is. Perhaps an e-newsletter campaign would be a better fit for you. Regardless of the tool you use, step it up, don't pull it back! Be crafty. Get clever. A down-turn isn't like a thunderstorm that you hunker down and ride out. It won't be over by morning. It's more like a winter, and not only to we need to live through it, we need to thrive in it. And we can. Let's not shrink in front of the challenge: let's rise to it.